Anna
by santana the strange
Summary: Elsa was the princess born with the powers of the ice, was the princess who ascended to the throne after their parents' deaths, and Anna was merely the princess who fell in love. But on the day of Elsa's coronation Anna met a strange man, who gives the Princess a gift.
1. Chapter 1

The new child, the tiny infant girl was beautiful, with fiery red locks and a complexion as pale as the ice that surrounded their home. The baby's eyes were a vivid witch-like emerald and twinkled with delight as she looked up at her family. Her mother and her father smiled down at her, but her sister edged away from the cradle as though she would rather be somewhere else.

'Why don't you say hello to your new sister Elsa?' The king asked to which his daughter shook her head and turned her back on the rest of her family, her pale white plait whipping in the air as she did so.

'Elsa!' Her mother, the queen, berated as she bent to take the new infant in her arms. 'Say hello to Anna,' she insisted and with a sigh Elsa turned and looked at the infant. The infant waved her hands in the air as though trying to capture Elsa's attentions. She smiled such a wide, cute smile that Elsa couldn't help but want to love the new baby. At three years old Elsa was much more different to other girls in the Kingdom of Arendelle and she was sometimes even frightened by the possibilities of what she could do.

Elsa had been born with the powers of the ice, she merely had to think of ice, to point her hand and there would be ice. In fact her entire body seemed to be made of ice. A good thing, because although Arendelle was one of the coldest places on the face of the Earth she didn't feel the cold, it didn't bother her.

Nothing about her powers bothered her and she was merely thinking of all the wonderful things she and her new sister could do when they were a little bit older. Elsa would show Anna the beauty of the ice and they would build Snowmen and would go ice skating, it would be perfect.

'Hello Anna,' Elsa greeted the infant and when she lowered her face to have a closer look, Anna patted her face. The softness of the baby's skin and the innocence of such an act made Elsa's heart melt. 'Can I hold her?' Elsa asked her mother who nodded her head. Their father picked up Elsa and placed her seating on the chair and her mother laid the infant in her older sister's waiting arms.

'She's so beautiful mother,' she spoke not to the queen but to the infant within her arms. She was the most perfect thing she had ever seen, she was even more special to Elsa than the ice that ran through her veins. 'I will always take care of you,' Elsa whispered to the child. 'I will always be your friend.'


	2. Do you wanna build a snowman?

'Elsa!' Anna let out a squeal as she raced through the castle, home, holding a perfect snowflake. December and it's starting to snow, they were going to have a white Christmas… finally. Ten years old and she had never seen the snow cover the Fjord at Christmas. Not until now. But she had to run faster, the snow flake is melting faster than she could run. She just had to show Elsa the snowflake, she'd love it.

'Elsa?' Anna asked and watched her sister get up from the breakfast table and exchange looks with mother and father. And for that one moment she felt like they were all keeping secrets from her. Anna race forward still. 'Elsa you have to see this snowflake, look how pretty it is, don't you think ice is just the prettiest?' She asked her the words barely out of her mouth before the older sister covered her face, her ice white hair stark against her barely darker hands. Elsa, Anna's big sister is crying because of her. She runs out of the room before she can apologise.

'Darling,' mother calls out and follows as she always does. Though Anna loved Elsa more than life itself, she was always there for her, a friend and a sister, somebody to build snowmen with. But Anna could not contain the hurt that echoed in her chest whenever mother put her wellbeing before hers. She felt like she wasn't cared for as much.

'What's wrong father?' Anna looked up to ask. 'Did I do something bad?'

'No, honey, now what's this about a snowflake?' He asks supportively and Anna rushed to show him the perfect particle of ice. 'I'm sorry sweetheart I think it melted.' His words are kind, spoken sweetly but here tears fell and she too covered her face with her hands, falling to the floor, silent tears of confusion and pain rolling down her chin. Why did the snow melt?

'It gone,' Anna whisper with the voice of a younger child, but then she could feel father behind her, leaning in and taking the hands off of her face, until she stared into his emerald green eyes, so like her own.

'Ice doesn't last forever. I wish you and your sister would both understand that. But why don't we go out and see if we can find another snowflake, and then you can show me the ones you like best?' Father asked, stroking her red hair comfortingly, and when a loose lock fell forward she looked at it. It tied Anna with Elsa she knew that. A part of her lived within Anna, for that one lock is the same as her hair. She craved every second spent with her sister.

'Can Elsa come too father?' Anna asked innocently, to which he appeared alarmed and shook his head.

'No sweetheart Elsa cannot come with us, Elsa can never leave her room.'

'Did she do something bad?' Anna asked confused when he shook his head and took her hand and together they left the beautiful castle, and out into the kingdom and the forest to build snowmen and catch snowflakes. Anna loved her father, where mother has never been there for her, he had. She didn't know what she'd do without her father.

#

'Come on Sven let's go sledding!' Ten year old Kristoff loved everything about ice, except maybe the fact that it was cold, but he'd grown up around it for as long as he could remember, he couldn't remember much more than ice. He lived up in the mountains with his family and their reindeer.

'Okay Kristoff,' Kristoff replied for the reindeer in a deeper voice.

'Wait for me cuties,' a female voice called from behind them and Kristoff turned to see his mother roll down the mountain towards them.

'Mum, I can go sledding on my own, and besides I'm with Sven, it's alright!'

'That's right; I'll take good care of Kristoff.'

'That may be Sven, but I not only came down to watch you two, I came to sled too,' mother said as she climbed on the back of the rock sled they had fashioned years ago. It was well worn but at least it carried the rock troll that was his adopted mother.

When Kristoff was a young boy he went out to collect ice with his father and the rest of the men but in the process they had become separated and all that had been left was his little wooden sled and Sven. Thankfully he had been rescued and bought up by a family of rock trolls, who were nothing but loving. He even had brothers and sisters, who were rolling down the hill with and without their own sleds.

'Father, can we go up the mountain?' A beautiful and young female voice called out as they rode to the bottom of the hill, the three of them holding on for dear life. If nothing trolls and their human family members and Sven were adrenaline junkies. They had no fears, felt life was too short to be afraid of anything and they did what they wanted. They had no fear so they feared not rejection.

'You must be very careful Anna, you are not just a little girl, and you are a princess as well. One day you must help Elsa run this kingdom.'

'It's the King!' Kristoff's mother called out when she spotted the two as they ascended the snowy hill. 'I never thought he would come here again. Does his daughter need our help once more?' She wondered and Kristoff did not like the way his mother felt that their King only came up the mountain to plead for help, she made the King seem mean.

'Anna, Princess Anna,' Kristoff said; watched as the red head made her way up towards him. She seemed familiar to him but he couldn't understand why. There was a stripe of white in her hair and she made him think of the little girl who had been bought to the trolls no more than five years ago. He remembered that so clearly. There was ice on the grass and he followed it to the trolls. That girl had helped him find a replacement family.

'The King's youngest daughter, the one not born with the powers of the ice,' mother informed him and he smiled.

'Can I go play with her, pretty please?' Kristoff asked and mother stilled. She'd always feared that Kristoff would find her own family and he would be taken from her, what would the King say if he found out a human, one of his own kingdom was living with trolls?

'Yes, but be careful Kristoff,' mother's words were going with the wind as he raced down the snowy hill towards the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

'Hello there, what is your name?' The King asked kindly when he saw Kristoff running towards them, he wore a nice smile and when Princes Anna gave him a shy look her father urged her forwards. 'Why don't you play with the little boy Anna? You might make friends.'

'Hi, I'm Kristoff,' he introduced himself before falling on his back as Sven bumped into him from behind. 'And this is Sven, say hello Sven.'

'Hello princess,' "Sven" said and the reindeer smiled wide as though pleased to meet the princess and then his eyes narrowed as though something had just occurred to him.

'Call me Anna,' she said, curtseying low to him.

'Okay, Anna, what do you wanna do?' Kristoff asked and she looked around at the snow, patted the reindeer, to her father's look of fright.

'Do you wanna build a snowman?' Anna asked in a sing-song voice. He smiled at that, at the beauty of her voice and together they spent hours and hours building snowmen. At one point the king had disappeared and returned with carrots for noses and stones for eyes. Before they knew it, it was time to go and the two young children hugged each other tightly before promising to play together again.


	3. Alone

_That next four years were filled with so much joy and confusion for Anna, bother her mother and her father were beginning to spend more time with her, but Elsa, Elsa never seemed to want to play or build snowmen, no matter how many times she asked. Anna appeared to have it all, even if she had forgotten all about her friend from the mountains._

_ But then one day her mother and father informed her that they were both going away on a trip, to find something they desperately needed. Anna had overheard father saying that they needed to cure Elsa and Anna's breath had hitched. Elsa was sick! Was her only sister dying? Her big sister that had always been there for her couldn't leave, she couldn't die, Anna wouldn't let her, and Anna would protect her!_

_ Anna had waited, ever so lonely, for them to come back and cure Elsa so they could be best friends again, but alas neither was to be made reality._

'Ellen?' Anna asked of her parlour maid when she entered the tapestry room that morning. When the maid put down the laundry she was carrying and came to sit by the little princess she asked the question on her mind. 'It has been weeks, forever, since mother and father left for the big wide world, when are they coming back?' she asked innocently but the maid would not reply and scurried away as though she didn't want to talk to her. Well that was odd.

'Do you ever miss your parents Joan?' Anna asked, looking up at her only friend. Her only friend was actually a painting of Joan of Arc, a fearsome warrior, who too had been so alone. 'I guess you didn't have to worry about sister rivalry huh?' she asked, and felt her cheekbones wet when she lay down to stare at the rest of the portraits and pictures around the room. There was her mother and father and Elsa as a baby. Another portrait and they were all their together, a time when there had been better circumstances, before Elsa had grown ill. Perhaps Elsa longed to protect Anna and that was why she didn't play with her no more? Maybe she was contagious?

Feeling sadness overcome her Anna climbed up from the chaise lounge and made her way to the kitchen for some chocolate. The sadness was an overwhelming emotion, climbing from her stomach all the way up her chest until it stuck there and threatened to suffocate her. Something bad was going to happen, she knew it. Her chest was too tight, and she had that feeling in the pit of her gut, something really bad was going to happen and she couldn't stop it, just as she couldn't stop the sobs in her throat and the tears in her eyes.

She rushed into the kitchen and stared at the cook until she delivered a piece of chocolate cake to the inconsolable princess.

'Something bad is going to happen Lena,' Anna told her friend the cook as she climbed up on the table and set her cake on her lap as she acquired a fork. 'I can feel it in my stomach, I feel lonelier than ever before. Where are my mother and father? I want them to come back so they can hug me tight and tell me everything's going to be okay,' she sobbed on the cook's uniform as she polished off her comfort food.

'Well sweetie I don't know if you've been told but…' the cook was cut off when trumpets sounded and when she raced into the main hall Elsa slowly made her way down the stairs, forever elegant, her expression as troubled as when their parents had left.

'Mother and father are back, Elsa, they have your cure!' Anna exclaimed as she raced for the double doors and the gates to the castle. 'Aren't you excited too?' Anna asked when she realised that Elsa wasn't following her as eagerly.

'Anna it's not them, they haven't come back. There isn't a cure,' Elsa spoke her first words to Anna in forever.

'There is Elsa, you have to believe in it, they'll make you all better and then we can be friends again and build snowmen until our hearts are content,' Anna said as she raced for the doors and threw them open, only to find faces filled with sadness and heavy hearts in the people who lived in her kingdom.

'Princess Elsa, Princess Anna, I am so sorry but your parents, they, they didn't make it,' the town crier told them and Anna knew, she knew he wasn't lying. Even without the pain etched in his face, the terror she'd felt before hadn't been ridiculous. Her parents were, they were, they were… gone. She was forever alone. No cure for Elsa, no mother, no father.

'Anna,' Elsa said and she felt a hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her.

'No!' Anna cried when she unfroze, tears rolling down her face. 'No don't touch me!' She screamed as she raced through the kingdom and out into the forest, the place where she and her father had built snowmen until their hands were numb and wouldn't work any longer.

#

'On this day we use this time to silently grieve for the wonderful king and queen we had rule over this land, and we pray that Queen Elsa will be able to control the powers she holds within her body, caused by her birth,' Pappy said as the trolls and Kristoff and Sven gathered around the clearing where he had first been found and where Pappy had cured and saved the life of an adorable little girl. A girl who had been struck by Elsa's powers.

'No!' A cry filled with so much pain reached his ears and Kristoff recognised it to be the voice of his one and only human friend, the Princess, Anna. She'd been told of her parents' death then. He heard a high pitched scream and then silence. He looked over at Pappy who winked at him knowingly. After all Kristoff could honour the king and queen better if he helped their daughter to overcome her pain couldn't he?

As silent as a mouse Kristoff crept through the trees that surrounded his home and out into the path that lead down to the bottom of the mountain. A path that lead to Anna. Anna was the kindest, most beautiful woman he had ever known, regardless of the fact that she was a princess and the ten year old Kristoff had been absolutely smitten. Now at the age of fourteen Kristoff didn't know how he would react to her back in his life after so long.

'Anna?' He called out as he raced down the hill and found her there crying, her head buried in the snow as though she could freeze away her pain and her tears and her agony. Unfortunately, he knew better. 'Hey Anna, it is okay, it's okay,' he said as he gathered her close and brushed her startling red hair back from her face.

'Don't touch me, get off me!' Anna said as she tried to push him away but he held firm.

'Anna it's me, Kristoff. We made snowmen together when we were ten?' He tried to remind her but she shook her head, until she looked up and saw his eyes.

'Kristoff, wow you've, you've really changed,' she said and he knew what she saw when she looked at him appraisingly. A strong, muscular man of fourteen with flowing fair locks and bright blue eyes. Human females found him irresistible whenever he went in to town to sell ice. She looked as though she did too.

'You too, when did you get so sad?'

'When Elsa started shutting me out, she doesn't love me anymore, and now that mother and father are gone… I, I don't have anybody. I'm all alone Kristoff,' she said as she buried her head his chest and sobbed noisily, not at all what he had expected of princess tears. Nevertheless, he hugged her tight to him and made shushing noises as he brushed the snow from her hair.

'No, no you're not Anna, you're never alone. We have each other, okay we have each other. I am always here for you; I have always been here for you. We are friends, let me be your friend,' Kristoff said as he held her at arm's length and wiped the tears that were persistently flowing down her bright red cheeks.

'Hold me close and don't let me go,' Anna told him and Kristoff found it to be an order he was going to follow out, as long as he could hold her forever. He liked the feeling of her in his arms.

'I will never let you go Anna,' he said and hugged her tighter to him.


End file.
